We were jubilant when we learned we had passed the Motown audition. I remember Berry Gordy sitting us all down and saying that we were going to make history together. “I’m gonna make you the biggest thing in the world,” he said, “and you’re gonna be written about in history books.” He really said that to us. We were leaning forward, listening to him, and saying, “Okay! Okay!” I’ll never forget that. We were all over at his house, and it was like a fairy tale come true listening to this powerful, talented man tell us we were going to be very big. “Your first record will be a number one, your second record will be a number one, and so will your third record. Three number one records in a row. You’ll hit the charts just as Diana Ross and the Supremes did.” This was almost unheard of in those days, but he was right; we turned around and did just that. Three in a row.
So Diana didn’t find us first, but I don’t think we’ll ever be able to repay Diana properly for all she did for us in those days. When we finally moved to Southern California, we actually lived with Diana and stayed with her for more than a year on a part-time basis. Some of us lived with Berry Gordy and some of us with Diana, and then we would switch. She was so wonderful, mothering us and making us feel right at home. She really helped take care of us for at least a year and a half while my parents closed up the Gary house and looked for a house we could all live in here in California. It was great for us because Berry and Diana lived on the same street in Beverly Hills. We could walk up to Berry’s house and then go back to Diana’s. Most of the time I’d spend the day at Diana’s and the night at Berry’s. This was an important period in my life because Diana loved art and encouraged me to appreciate it too. She took the time to educate me about it. We’d go out almost every day, just the two of us, and buy pencils and paint. When we weren’t drawing or painting, we’d go to museums. She introduced me to the works of the great artists like Michelangelo and Degas and that was the start of my lifelong interest in art. She really taught me a great deal. It was so new to me and so exciting. It was really different from what I was used to doing, which was living and breathing music, rehearsing day in and day out. You wouldn’t think a big star like Diana would take the time to teach a kid to paint, to give him an education in art, but she did and I loved her for it. I still do. I’m crazy about her. She was my mother, my lover, and my sister all combined in one amazing person.
Those were truly wild days for me and my brothers. When we flew to California from Chicago, it was like being in another country, another world. To come from our part of Indiana, which is so urban and often bleak, and to land in Southern California was like having the world transformed into a wonderful dream. I was uncontrollable back then. I was all over the place—Disneyland, Sunset Strip, the beach. My brothers loved it too, and we got into everything, like kids who had just visited a candy store for the first time. We were awestruck by California; trees had oranges and leaves on them in the middle of winter. There were palm trees and beautiful sunsets, and the weather was so warm. Every day was special. I would be doing something that was fun and wouldn’t want it to end, but then I’d realize there was something else to do later that was going to be just as enjoyable and that I could look forward to just as much. Those were heady days.
One of the best parts of being there was meeting all the big Motown stars who had emigrated to California along with Berry Gordy after he moved from Detroit. I remember when I first shook Smokey Robinson’s hand. It was like shaking hands with a king. My eyes lit up with stars, and I remember telling my mother that his hand felt as if it was layered with soft pillows. You don’t think about the little impressions people walk away with when you’re a star yourself, but the fans do. At least, I know I did. I mean, I walked around saying, “His hand is so soft.” When I think about it now, it sounds silly, but it made a big impression on me. I had shaken Smokey Robinson’s hand. There are so many artists and musicians and writers I admire. When I was young, the people I watched were the real showmen—James Brown, Sammy Davis, Jr., Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly. A great showman touches everybody; that’s the real test of greatness and these men have it. Like Michelangelo’s work, it touches you, I don’t care who you are, I am always excited when I get a chance to meet someone whose work has affected me in some way. Maybe I’ve read a book that has touched me deeply or made me think about things that I haven’t focused on before. A certain song or style of singing can excite me or move me and become a favorite that I’ll never tire of hearing. A picture or a painting can reveal a universe. In the same vein, an actor’s performance or a collective performance can transform me.
In those days Motown had never recorded a kids’ group. In fact the only child singer they had ever produced was Stevie Wonder. So Motown was determined that if they were going to promote kids, they’d promote the kind of kids who were good at more than just singing and dancing. They wanted people to like us because of who we were, not just because of our records. They wanted us to set an example by sticking to our schoolwork and being friendly to our fans, reporters, and everyone who came into contact with us. This wasn’t hard for us because our mother had raised us to be polite and considerate. It was second nature. Our only problem with schoolwork was that once we became well known, we couldn’t go to school because people would come into our classrooms through the windows, looking for an autograph or a picture. I was trying to keep up with my classes and not be the cause of disruptions, but it finally became impossible and we were given tutors to teach us at home.
During this period a lady named Suzanne de Passe was having a great effect on our lives. She worked for Motown, and it was she who trained us religiously once we moved to L.A. She also became a manager for the Jackson 5. We lived with her occasionally, ate with her, and even played with her. We were a rowdy, high-spirited bunch, and she was young herself and full of fun. She really contributed a lot toward the shaping of the Jackson 5, and I’ll never be able to thank her enough for all she did.
I remember Suzanne showing us these charcoal sketches of the five of us. In each sketch we had a different hairstyle. In another set of color drawings we were all pictured in different clothes that could be switched around like Colorforms. After we all decided on the hairstyles, they took us to a barber so he could make us match up with our pictures. Then, after she showed us the clothes, we went down to a wardrobe department where they gave us outfits to try on. They’d see us in one set of clothes, decide the clothes weren’t right, and we’d all go back to the Colorforms to “try on” some more.
We had classes in manners and grammar. They gave us a list of questions, and they said they were the kinds of questions that we could expect people to ask us. We were always being asked about our interests and our hometown and how we liked singing together. Fans and reporters alike wanted to know how old we each were when we started performing. It was hard to have your life turn into public property, even if you appreciated that people were interested in you because of your music.
One of the many photo sessions we did with Motown.
The Motown people tested us on the answers to questions we hadn’t heard from anyone yet. They tested us on grammar. And table manners. When we were ready, they brought us in for the last alterations on our sleeves and the trimming of our new Afros.
After all that there was a new song to learn called “I Want You Back.” The song had a story behind it that we found out about little by little. It was written by someone from Chicago named Freddie Perren. He had been Jerry Butler’s pianist when we opened for Jerry in a Chicago nightclub. He had felt sorry for these little kids the club owner had hired, figuring the club couldn’t afford to get anyone else. His opinion changed dramatically when he saw us perform.
As it turned out, “I Want You Back” was originally called “I Want to Be Free” and was written for Gladys Knight. Freddie had even thought that Berry might go over Gladys’s head and give the song to the Supremes. Instead, he mentioned to Jerry that he’d just signed this group of kids from Gary, Indiana. Freddie put two and two together, realized it was us, and decided to trust fate.
When we were learning the Steeltown songs back in Gary, Tito and Jermaine had to pay special attention because they were responsible for playing on those records. When they heard the demo for “I Want You Back,” they listened to the guitar and bass parts, but Dad explained that Motown didn’t expect them to play on our records; the rhythm track would be taken care of before we put our vocals down. But he reminded them that this would put more pressure on them to keep up their practice independently, because we’d have to duplicate those songs in front of our fans. In the meantime, all of us had lyrics and cues to learn.
The guys looking after us in the singing department were Freddy Perrin and Bobby Taylor and Deke Richards, who, along with Hal Davis and another Motown guy named “Fonce” Mizell, were part of the team that wrote and produced our first singles. Together these guys were called “The Corporation.” We went over to Richards’s apartment to rehearse, and he was impressed that we had prepared so well. He didn’t have to do much tinkering with the vocal arrangement he’d worked out, and he thought that while we were still hot, we should go right to the studio and cut our parts. The following afternoon we went to the studio. We were all so happy with what we got that we took our rough mix over to Berry Gordy. It was still midafternoon when we arrived at his studio. We figured that once Berry heard it, we’d be home in time for supper.
But it was one in the morning when I finally slumped in the back seat of Richards’s car, bobbing and steadying my head all the way home to fight off sleep. Gordy hadn’t liked the song we did. We went over every part again, and when we did, Gordy figured out what changes he had to make in the arrangement. He was trying new things with us, like a school chorus master who has everyone singing their part as if they’re singing alone, even if you can’t hear him or her distinctly for the crowd. After he was through rehearsing us as a group, and he had reworked the music, he took me aside, one on one, to explain my part. He told me exactly what he wanted and how he wanted me to help him get it. Then he explained everything to Freddie Perren, who was going to record it. Berry was brilliant in this area. Right after the single was released, we went in to cut an album. We were particularly impressed with the “I Want You Back” session then because that one song took more time (and tape) than all the other songs on the record combined. That’s the way Motown did things in those days because Berry insisted on perfection and attention to detail. I’ll never forget his persistence. This was his genius. Then and later, I observed every moment of the sessions where Berry was present and never forgot what I learned. To this day I use the same principles. Berry was my teacher and a great one. He could identify the little elements that would make a song great rather than just good. It was like magic, as if Berry was sprinkling pixie dust over everything.
For me and my brothers, recording for Motown was an exciting experience. Our team of writers shaped our music by being with us as we recorded it over and over, molding and sculpting a song until it was just perfect. We would cut a track over and over for weeks until we got it just as they wanted it. And I could see while they were doing it that it was getting better and better. They would change words, arrangements, rhythms, everything. Berry gave them the freedom to work this way because of his own perfectionist nature. I guess if they hadn’t been doing it, he would have. Berry had such a knack. He’d just walk into the room where we were working and tell me what to do and he’d be right. It was amazing.
When “I Want You Back” was released in November 1969, it sold two million copies in six weeks and went to number one. Our next single, “ABC,” came out in March 1970 and sold two million records in three weeks. I still like the part where I say, “Siddown, girl! I think I loove you! No, get up, girl, show me what you can do!” When our third single, “The Love You Save,” went to number one in June of 1970, Berry’s promise came true.
When our next single, “I’ll Be There,” was also a big hit in the fall of that year, we realized we might even surpass Berry’s expectations and be able to pay him back for all the effort he had made for us.
My brothers and I—our whole family—were very proud. We had created a new sound for a new decade. It was the first time in recording history that a bunch of kids had made so many hit records. The Jackson 5 had never had much competition from kids our own age. In the amateur days there was a kids’ group called the Five Stair-steps that we used to see. They were good, but they didn’t seem to have the strong family unit that we did, and sadly they broke up. After “ABC” hit the charts in such a big way, we started seeing other groups that record companies were grooming to ride the bandwagon we had built. I enjoyed all these groups: the Partridge Family, the Osmonds, the DeFranco Family. The Osmonds were already around, but they were doing a much different style of music, like barbershop harmony and crooning. As soon as we hit, they and the other groups got into soul real fast. We didn’t mind. Competition, as we knew, was healthy. Our own relatives thought “One Bad Apple” was us. I remember being so little that they had a special apple crate for me to stand on with my name on it so I could reach the microphone. Microphones didn’t go down far enough for kids my age. So many of my childhood years went by that way, with me standing on that apple box singing my heart out while other kids were outside playing.
As I said before, in those early days “The Corporation” at Motown produced and shaped all our music. I remember lots of times when I felt the song should be sung one way and the producers felt it should be sung another way. But for a long time I was very obedient and wouldn’t say anything about it. Finally it reached a point where I got fed up with being told exactly how to sing. This was in 1972 when I was fourteen years old, around the time of the song “Lookin’ Through the Windows.” They wanted me to sing a certain way, and I knew they were wrong. No matter what age you are, if you have it and you know it, then people should listen to you. I was furious with our producers and very upset. So I called Berry Gordy and complained. I said that they had always told me how to sing, and I had agreed all this time, but now they were getting too … mechanical.
So he came into the studio and told them to let me do what I wanted to do. I think he told them to let me be more free or something. And after that, I started adding a lot of vocal twists that they really ended up loving. I’d do a lot of ad-libbing, like twisting words or adding some edge to them.
When Berry was in the studio with us, he would always add something that was right. He’d go from studio to studio, checking on different aspects of people’s work, often adding elements that made the records better. Walt Disney used to do the same thing; he’d go check on his various artists and say, “Well, this character should be more outgoing.” I always knew when Berry was enjoying something I was doing in the studio, because he has this habit of rolling his tongue in his cheek when he’s pleased by something. If things were really going well, he’d punch the air like the ex-professional boxer he is.
By this time the microphone had become a natural extension of my hand.
My three favorite songs from those days are “Never Can Say Goodbye,” “I’ll Be There,” and “ABC.” I’ll never forget the first time I heard “ABC.” I thought it was so good. I remember feeling this eagerness to sing that song, to get in the studio and really make it work for us.
We were still rehearsing daily and working hard—some things didn’t change—but we were grateful to be where we were. There were so many people pulling for us, and we were so determined ourselves that it seemed anything could happen.
Once “I Want You Back” came out, everyone at Motown prepared us for success. Diana loved it and presented us at a big-name Hollywood discotheque, where she had us playing in a comfortable party atmosphere like at Berry’s. Following directly on the heels of Diana’s event came an invitation to play at the “Miss Black America” telecast. Being on the show would enable us to give people a preview of our record and our show. After we got the invitation, my brothers and I remembered our disappointment at not getting to go to New York to do our first TV show because Motown had called. Now we were going to do our first TV show and we were with Motown. Life was very good. Diana, of course, put the cherry on top. She was going to host “The Hollywood Palace,” a big Saturday night show; it would be her last appearance with the Supremes and the first major exposure for us. This meant a lot to Motown, because by then they had decided that our new album would be called “Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5.” Never before had a superstar like Diana passed the torch to a bunch of kids. Motown, Diana, and five kids from Gary, Indiana, were all pretty excited. By then “I Want You Back” had come out, and Berry was proven right again; all the stations that played Sly and the Beatles were playing us, too.
As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t work as hard on the album as we did on the single, but we had fun trying out all sorts of songs—from “Who’s Lovin’ You,” the old Miracles’ song we were doing in the talent show days, to “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
We did songs on that album that appealed to a wide audience—kids, teenagers, and grownups—and we all felt that was a reason for its big success. We knew that “The Hollywood Palace” had a live audience, a sophisticated Hollywood crowd, and we were concerned; but we had them from the first note. There was an orchestra in the pit, so that was the first time I heard all of “I Want You Back” performed live because I wasn’t there when they recorded the strings for the album. Doing that show made us feel like kings, the way winning the citywide show in Gary had.
Selecting the right songs for us to do was going to be a real challenge now that we weren’t depending on other people’s hits to win a crowd. The Corporation guys and Hal Davis were put to work writing songs especially for us, as well as producing them. Berry didn’t want to have to bail us all out again. So even after our first singles hit number one on the charts, we were busy with the follow-ups.
“I Want You Back” could have been sung by a grown-up, but “ABC” and “The Love You Save” were written for our young voices, with parts for Jermaine as well as me—another bow to the Sly sound, which rotated singers around the stage. The Corporation had also written those songs with dance routines in mind: the steps our fans did at parties as well as those we did on stage. The verses were tongue-twisting, and that’s why they were split up between Jermaine and me.
Neither of those records could have happened without “I Want You Back.” We were adding and subtracting ideas in the arrangements from that one mother lode of a song, but the public seemed to want everything we were doing. We later made two more records in the vein, “Mama’s Pearl” and “Sugar Daddy,” which reminded me of my own schoolyard days: “While I’m giving you the candy, he’s getting all your love!” We added one new wrinkle when Jermaine and I sang harmony together, which always got an enthusiastic response when we did it from the same mike on stage.
The pros have told us that no group had a better start than we did. Ever.
“I’ll Be There” was our real breakthrough song; it was the one that said, “We’re here to stay.” It was number one for five weeks, which is very unusual. That’s a long time for a song and the song was one of my favorites of all the songs we’ve ever done. How I loved the words: “You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back …” Willie Hutch and Berry Gordy didn’t seem like people who’d write like that. They were always kidding around with us when we weren’t in the studio. But that song grabbed me from the moment I heard the demo. I didn’t even know what a harpsichord was until that record’s opening notes were played for us. The song was produced thanks to the genius of Hal Davis, assisted by Suzy Ikeda, my other half who stood next to me song after song, making sure I put the right emotion and feeling and heart into the composition. It was a serious song, but we threw in a fun part when I sang “Just look over your shoulder, honey!” Without the honey, that’s right out of the Four Tops’ great song “Reach Out, I’ll Be There.” So we were feeling more and more like a part of Motown’s history as well as its future.
Originally the plan was for me to sing all the bouncy stuff and Jermaine to do the ballads. But though Jermaine’s voice at seventeen was more mature, ballads were more my love, if not really my style—yet. That was our fourth straight number one as a group, and a lot of people liked Jermaine’s song “I Found That Girl,” the B-side of “The Love You Save,” just as much as the hits.
We worked those songs into one big medley, with plenty of room for dancing, and we went back to that medley when we performed on all kinds of TV shows. For instance, we played on “The Ed Sullivan Show” three different times. Motown always told us what to say in interviews back then, but Mr. Sullivan was one of the people who drew us out and made us feel comfortable.
Looking back, I wouldn’t say Motown was putting us in any kind of straitjacket or turning us into robots, even though I wouldn’t have done it that way myself; and if I had children, I wouldn’t tell them what to say. The Motown people were doing something with us that hadn’t been done before, and who was to say what was the right way to handle that sort of stuff?
Reporters would ask us all kinds of questions, and the Motown people would be standing by to help us out or monitor the questions if need be. We wouldn’t have dreamed of trying anything that would embarrass them. I guess they were worried about the possibility of our sounding militant the way people were often doing in those days. Maybe they were worried after they gave us those Afros that they had created little Frankensteins. Once a reporter asked a Black Power question and the Motown person told him we didn’t think about that stuff because we were a “commercial product.” It sounded weird, but we winked and gave the power salute when we left, which seemed to thrill the guy.
We even had a reunion with Don Cornelius on his “Soul Train” show. He had been a local disc jockey during our Chicago days, so we all knew one another from that time. We enjoyed watching his show and picked up ideas from those dancers who were from our part of the country.
The crazy days of the big Jackson 5 tours began right after the successes we had with our records. It started with a big arena tour in the fall of 1970; we played huge halls like Madison Square Garden and the Los Angeles Forum. When “Never Can Say Goodbye” was a big hit in 1971, we played forty-five cities that summer, followed by fifty more cities later that year.
I recall most of that time as a period of extreme closeness with my brothers. We have always been a very loyal and affectionate group. We clowned around, goofed off a lot together, and played outrageous pranks on each other and the people who worked with us. We never got too rowdy—no TVs sailed out of our hotel windows, but a lot of water was spilled on various heads. We were mostly trying to conquer the boredom we felt from being so long on the road. When you’re bored on tour, you tend to do anything to cheer yourself up. Here we were, cramped up in these hotel rooms, unable to go anywhere because of the mobs of screaming girls outside, and we wanted to have some fun. I wish we could have captured some of the stuff we did on film, especially some of the wild pranks. We’d all wait until our security manager, Bill Bray, was asleep. Then we’d stage insane fast-walk races in the hallways, pillow fights, tag-team wrestling matches, shaving cream wars, you name it. We were nuts. We’d drop balloons and paper bags full of water off hotel balconies and watch them explode. Then we’d die laughing. We threw stuff at each other and spent hours on the phone making fake calls and ordering immense room service meals that were delivered to the rooms of strangers. Anyone who walked into one of our bedrooms had a ninety percent chance of being drenched by a bucket of water propped over the doors.
When we’d arrive in a new city, we’d try to do all the sightseeing we could. We traveled with a wonderful tutor, Rose Fine, who taught us a great deal and made sure we did our lessons. It was Rose who instilled in me a love of books and literature that sustains me today. I read everything I could get my hands on. New cities meant new places to shop. We loved to shop, especially in bookstores and department stores, but as our fame spread our fans transformed casual shopping trips into hand-to-hand combat. Being mobbed by near hysterical girls was one of the most terrifying experiences for me in those days. I mean, it was rough. We’d decide to run into some department store to see what they had, and the fans would find out we were there and would demolish the place, just tear it up. Counters would get knocked over, glass would break, the cash registers would be toppled. All we had wanted to do was look at some clothes! When those mob scenes broke out, all the craziness and adulation and notoriety became more than we could handle. If you haven’t witnessed a scene like that, you can’t imagine what it’s like. Those girls were serious. They still are. They don’t realize they might hurt you because they’re acting out of love. They mean well, but I can testify that it hurts to be mobbed. You feel as if you’re going to suffocate or be dismembered. There are a thousand hands grabbing at you. One girl is twisting your wrist this way while another girl is pulling your watch off. They grab your hair and pull it hard, and it hurts like fire. You fall against things and the scrapes are horrible. I still wear the scars, and I can remember in which city I got each of them. Early on, I learned how to run through crowds of thrashing girls outside of theaters, hotels, and airports. It’s important to remember to shield your eyes with your hands because girls can forget they have nails during such emotional confrontations. I know the fans mean well and I love them for their enthusiasm and support, but crowd scenes are scary.
The wildest mob scene I ever witnessed happened the first time we went to England. We were in the air over the Atlantic when the pilot announced that he had just been told there were ten thousand kids waiting for us at Heathrow Airport. We couldn’t believe it. We were excited, but if we could have turned around and flown home, we might have. We knew this was going to be something, but since there wasn’t enough fuel to go back, we flew on. When we landed, we could see that the fans had literally taken over the whole airport. It was wild to be mobbed like that. My brothers and I felt fortunate to make it out of the airport alive that day.
I wouldn’t trade my memories of those days with my brothers for anything. I often wish I could relive those days. We were like the seven dwarfs: each of us was different, each had his own personality. Jackie was the athlete and the worrier. Tito was the strong, compassionate father figure. He was totally into cars and loved putting them together and tearing them apart. Jermaine was the one I was closest to when we were growing up. He was funny and easygoing, and was constantly fooling around. It was Jermaine who put all those buckets of cold water on the doors of our hotel rooms. Marlon was and is one of the most determined people I’ve ever met. He, too, was a real joker and prankster. He used to be the one who’d always get in trouble in the early days because he’d be out of step or miss a note, but that was far from true later.
Bill Cosby gives us the rules of love and baseball.
The diversity of my brothers’ personalities and the closeness we felt were what kept me going during those gruelling days of constant touring. Everybody helped everybody. Jackie and Tito would keep us from going too far with our pranks. They’d seem to have us under control, and then Jermaine and Marlon would shout, “Let’s go crazy!!”
I really miss all that. In the early days we were together all the time. We’d go to amusement parks or ride horses or watch movies. We did everything together. As soon as someone said, “I’m going swimming,” we’d all yell, “Me too!”
The separation from my brothers started much later, when they began to get married. An understandable change occurred as each of them became closest to his wife and they became a family unit unto themselves. A part of me wanted us to stay as we were—brothers who were also best friends—but change is inevitable and always good in one sense or another. We still love each other’s company. We still have a great time when we’re together. But the various paths our lives have taken won’t allow us the freedom to enjoy one another’s company as much as we did.
In those days, touring with the Jackson 5, I always shared a room with Jermaine. He and I were close, both onstage and off, and shared a lot of the same interests. Since Jermaine was also the brother most intrigued by the girls who wanted to get at him, he and I would get into mischief on the road.
I think our father decided early on that he had to keep a more watchful eye on us than on our other brothers. He would usually take the room next to ours, which meant he could come in to check on us anytime through the connecting doors. I really despised this arrangement, not only because he could monitor our misbehavior, but also because he used to do the meanest things to us. Jermaine and I would be sleeping, exhausted after a show, and my father would bring a bunch of girls into the room; we’d wake up and they’d be standing there, looking at us, giggling.
Because show business and my career were my life, the biggest personal struggle I had to face during those teenage years did not involve the recording studios or my stage performance. In those days, the biggest struggle was right there in my mirror. To a great degree, my identity as a person was tied to my identity as a celebrity.
My appearance began to really change when I was about fourteen. I grew quite a bit in height. People who didn’t know me would come into a room expecting to be introduced to cute little Michael Jackson and they’d walk right past me. I would say, “I’m Michael,” and they would look doubtful. Michael was a cute little kid; I was a gangly adolescent heading toward five feet ten inches. I was not the person they expected or even wanted to see. Adolescence is hard enough, but imagine having your own natural insecurities about the changes your body is undergoing heightened by the negative reactions of others. They seemed so surprised that I could change, that my body was undergoing the same natural change everyone’s does.
It was tough. Everyone had called me cute for a long time, but along with all the other changes, my skin broke out in a terrible case of acne. I looked in the mirror one morning and it was like, “OH NO!” I seemed to have a pimple for every oil gland. And the more I was bothered by it, the worse it got. I didn’t realize it then, but my diet of greasy processed food didn’t help either.
I became subconsciously scarred by this experience with my skin. I got very shy and became embarrassed to meet people because my complexion was so bad. It really seemed that the more I looked in the mirror, the worse the pimples got. My appearance began to depress me. So I know that a case of acne can have a devastating effect on a person. The effect on me was so bad that it messed up my whole personality. I couldn’t look at people when I talked to them. I’d look down, or away. I felt I didn’t have anything to be proud of and I didn’t even want to go out. I didn’t do anything.
My brother Marlon would be covered with pimples and he wouldn’t care but I didn’t want to see anybody and I didn’t want anyone to see my skin in that shape. It makes you wonder about what makes us the way we are, that two brothers could be so different.
I still had our hit records to be proud of, and once I hit the stage, I didn’t think about anything else. All that worry was gone.
But once I came offstage, there was that mirror to face again.
Eventually, things changed. I started feeling differently about my condition. I’ve learned to change how I think and learned to feel better about myself. Most important, I changed my diet. That was the key.
In the fall of 1971 I cut my first solo record, “Got to Be There.” It was wonderful working on that record and it became one of my favorites. It was Berry Gordy’s idea that I should do a solo recording, and so I became one of the first people in a Motown group to really step out. Berry also said he thought I should record my own album. Years later, when I did, I realized he was right.
There was a small conflict during that era that was typical of the struggles I went through as a young singer.
When you’re young and have ideas, people often think you’re just being childish and silly. We were on tour in 1972, the year “Got to Be There” became a big hit. One night I said to our road manager, “Before I sing that song, let me go offstage and grab that little hat I wore for the picture on the album cover. If the audience sees me wearing that hat, they’ll go crazy.”
He thought it was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. I was not allowed to do it because I was young, and they all thought it was a dumb idea. Not long after that incident, Donny Osmond began wearing a very similar hat all over the country and people loved it. I felt good about my instincts; I had thought it would work. I had seen Marvin Gaye wear a hat when he sang “Let’s Get It On,” and people went bananas. They knew what was coming when Marvin put that hat on. It added excitement and communicated something to the audience that allowed them to become more involved with the show.
I was already a devoted fan of film and animation by the time “The Jackson Five” Saturday morning cartoon show started appearing over network television in 1971. Diana Ross had enhanced my appreciation of animation when she taught me to draw, but being a cartoon character pushed me over the brink into a full-time love of the movies and the kind of animated motion pictures pioneered by Walt Disney. I have such admiration for Mr. Disney and what he accomplished with the help of so many talented artists. When I think about the joy he and his company have brought to millions of children—and adults—the world over, I am in awe.
I loved being a cartoon. It was so much fun to get up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons and look forward to seeing ourselves on the screen. It was like a fantasy come true for all of us.
My first real involvement with films came when I sang the title song for the movie Ben in 1972.
Ben meant a lot to me. Nothing had ever excited me as much as going to the studio to put my voice on film. I had a great time. Later, when the movie came out, I’d go to the theater and wait until the end when the credits would flash on, and it would say, “ ‘Ben’ sung by Michael Jackson.” I was really impressed by that. I loved the song and loved the story. Actually, the story was a lot like E.T. It was about a boy who befriended a rat. People didn’t understand the boy’s love for this little creature. He was dying of some disease and his only true friend was Ben, the leader of the rats in the city where they lived. A lot of people thought the movie was a bit odd, but I was not one of them. The song went to number one and is still a favorite of mine. I have always loved animals and I enjoy reading about them and seeing movies in which they’re featured.
